From WNYKRs in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Bob Garfield is away this week.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the U.S. Army issued orders to seize the only TV station in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The division commander said the aim was to block that station's continued broadcasts of Al Jazeera.

According to the journal, the officer charged with carrying out the order refused, because she

found it inconsistent with the Pentagon's stated aim of protecting such citizen rights as free speech,

and she was relieved of duty. But the U.S. government is not the only critic of Al Jazeera,

another Arab media. Abdul Rahman Ah Rashid is the editor-in-chief of Al-Shaq al-Sat newspaper published in London.

During the war, he wrote that overblown reports of Iraqi resistance would lead to a rude awakening.

As in 1967, when Egyptians, misled by news reports,

were shocked to learn that they had lost the war with Israel. Mr. Al Rashid, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Now, during the war, you wrote a number of editorials criticizing the Arab media's

coverage, especially Al Jazeera. What bothered you the most?

From the beginning, they kept repeating the Iraqi information minister.

And they had, you know, Iraqi talking heads for days and nights

about how patriotic the army is and how they're going to win the war.

They led the people that to the last minute, the Americans

were not winning, they did not get Basra, they are so far from Baghdad, it will take

them days before they reach Baghdad, stories after stories of amazing fighting in different

towns at the time when the American forces already in Baghdad.

And of course, it was a big shock to everybody because the media made them believe

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